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trainmasters) wrote2018-10-22 02:26 am
trainmasters) wrote2018-10-22 02:26 am
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event suggestions
Have a Star, Event, or Trial you'd like to see? Want to run an Event yourself? Please let us know! Our story can only be its best with the players' input and perspectives, so we welcome all suggestions and ideas. Even if you're not sure it'd fit, bring it up! We'll do our best to work in any idea you have.
Comments to this entry are not screened. If you'd like to keep your suggestion private, please contact us via email at auroraexpressmods [at] gmail.
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2. Dream scenario in which everyone on the train shares the same dream. However, it starts out broken down by Team, so each team would start out in an identical place and situation but their choices and how they go further leads them down different paths and expands the dream's "world". From here, of course, as with the nature of dreams, anything can happen, but it'll be up to you, or the characters, to decides the outcome.
3. For 24 hours, the action(s) that a team uses to link/bond with each other will be All that they can do or say (either for Everything or for all Social Interaction). Wish the characters luck. They're going to need it.
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The game is plenty fun and I'm loving the setting and current cast to bits, but I think the biggest problem we're currently facing is that when there aren't games around, it can be hard to get your ball rolling. This is something I think a lot of games with the running-games formula struggle with, actually, so I've been trying to think of ways we could try to get more engagement and there are two plans of actions I've come up with - though one of them (specifically Events) I think you've actually already set up.
Proposal A: player-run games.
I know players cannot run games right now for plot reasons, which is entirely valid. However, this also puts a huge strain on mod team to keep coming up with and then running the games, which absolutely takes a lot of planning and work. I think allowing players to run their own games would lessen the strain on mods shoulders. I know we got some really creative players in our midst so I think there are a lot of people who would be willing to put forth effort to make sure there are more things to do in between modly run games to keep interest up.
What I thought specifically, since plot concerns are absolutely legit, was that for now, until you make up a new system, characters themselves could have the chance to organize and run a game for a few extra sparks for themselves and their team (for example, a hosting team could automatically get 300 sparks JUST for organizing, with the character himself getting a guaranteed 500 regardless of if the team wins or not).
Characters would be given temporary powers and items that would allow them to set this up - for example the ability to unlock/lock specific team rooms, or like, say, tie people up on the spot if that's something designed in the game. This could be like organizing bond events, but with less specifications of it being under a specific umbrella of action so players themselves can have an excuse for running it. The game can either have been entirely planned by the character or maybe the Train Gods had a game proposal and the character agreed to run it. Off the top of my head something that could be fun to try was a game Vyn mentioned in chat the other day with titles swap (characters get a title that describe themselves, can trade that with other characters and get the trait associated with it, etc). I was thinking definitely no trauma games (at least not intentionally so) for this option so those heavy ones can be left to mod team, but like that we can also integrate silly games that would give characters things to do while being ultimately Not That Important.
I think we could also benefit from having more games last over the course of a couple of days (say a weekend) rather than being at a set time, with multiple rounds and turn ins. That way everyone gets a chance to play even if they are not available for turn in time.
Proposal B: Events with a set schedule
This would be events that would alterate the world and setting in a consistent way through the month, so these would be things that could happen alongside game while still being integrated with the actual game and give people things to do during the month. It could be something as small as "the heating is off the train and you can't restore it, it's cold as balls and you gotta keep seven layers of blankets for the rest of the month" or stuff that could be opt-in like "this month you have an emotional bond connection with [whatever characters you want to have it with]", or fake memories from an alternate life that you can make up on the spot, and so on. I think the best way to make it work is with things that can be played in the background while not being the main focus of a post, so it can be ongoing. I haven't thought of a proper full list but if you think this could be a way to spice things up I'll make an effort to try to come up with at least 12 proposals that you can then pick and chose from - and we can also just ask other players inputs on what they'd like to see for events of this type as well.
AND FOR NOW, THAT'S ALL! I hope this is helpful and of course if that's not the direction you want to go for that's absolutely okay, just wanted to throw in some suggestions!
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SO I know that by and large the theme of Aurora IS meant to focus on game-wide creation of bonds rather than team-specific bonds, and I'm fine with that! But I do think that overall the role of teams in Aurora is still weaker than it necessarily needs to be while still keeping the focus on community-wide cohesion, especially because teams actually having a strong team identity serves a pretty important OOC purpose of providing built-in CR, making it easier for OCs and lone canon warriors to assimilate, etc. The trial system already does a pretty good job of reinforcing the community-wide bonds, since the way things are right now teams essentially don't EXIST in the context of trials-- and again, that's fine, that's baked into the game's themes and serves an important role in the lore!-- but due to that, I feel like there's not much right now that actually ENCOURAGES teams to form a specific team identity vs just seeing each other as roommates, and if you're on board I think there's some things we could do outside the context of games to make the team role a little stronger!
My biggest suggestion is that we get rid of the private rooms in the team cars and have everyone share a communal living space. I know this will likely come with a short-term hit to overall IC morale, but long-term I think it would increase team bonding a lot! Right now it's way too easy for Difficult Characters to hide themselves away and refuse to interact beyond the bare minimum, and private rooms even limit interactions for characters that are decently social otherwise. Here's where I see the biggest impacts:
- Memloss characters! Taking memories as a team was always a HUGE factor for my characters re: team bonding in other teamnesia games, but right now the fact that taking memories is either fully public or fully private kind of removes the team-specific bonding aspect. For characters that don't take their memories publicly (and like... I imagine MOST characters will make the move to private memories at some point in their memloss career), taking them privately in their rooms is just the Thing That Makes Sense To Do, even for characters that aren't super privacy-oriented and WOULD be willing to take them with their teammates in the train car in the absence of private rooms. Removing the private rooms would kind of establish taking memories in your train car with your teammates as the new norm for private memories, and I'd rather that the super-private characters be FORCED to slink off and just hope that no one finds them taking their memories in the laundry room/caves/forest/whatever than having a ready-made way for no one to ever see them take their memories.
- Day-to-day living for all characters! Your character has a shit sleep schedule and likes to run on fumes? WHOOPS, NOW THEIR TEAMMATES CAN YELL AT THEM ABOUT IT. You have a secret alternate personality that comes out at night on the full moon? BETTER TELL YOUR TEAMMATES BEFORE THEY MEET HIM UNAWARES! Your character is very vaguely pretending to be a seven-year-old girl but all the books she buys are biochemistry journals? WHOOPS, GUESS YOU HAVE TO CONSPICULOUSLY SNEAK OFF TO THE CAVES TO GET YOUR READING ON IF YOU WANT TO KEEP THAT SECRET! (I mean, that one's just me, but you get the gist!!) Having a fully communal living space just makes it SO MUCH HARDER to keep secrets and keep your teammates out of your business and that seems exactly like Aurora's jam on an IC level, and on an OOC level I feel like it would encourage things like actually having regular team posts for characters to interact.
NOW for train upgrades this is sort of ~handwobble-- maybe characters can still upgrade their section of the communal bedroom area with like, a fancy bed and mirrors on the ceiling and a bunch of computers or whatever, but for additional rooms teams can only purchase non-locking rooms so you can still HAVE a lab or a training room or a sex dungeon but you gotta put a sock on the doorknob bc the door isn't keeping anybody out, etc., just to address said Difficult Characters not just immediately buying themselves private rooms back. That's a harder thing to address (and maybe you can't buy extra rooms with doors at all and if people want to bang they gotta go make themselves a sex dungeon in the tunnels, idk!!), but overall, I think communal bedrooms would be a good place to start to make the environment also encourage team bonding in additional to Aurora-wide bonding!
ANYWAY, just a suggestion, I love Aurora and I really love the team themes and ability to upgrade the train cars and team Bonds for encouraging team bonding, but I've sort of Felt the lack of real team identity and wondered if anyone else thought this might be a helpful suggestion for getting some of that into the game (or we could at least use this as a starting point for figuring out other ways to achieve stronger team identities!) Let me know what you think \o/
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Which is to say, a game wherein each team designs for themselves a third outfit to be one of the "defaults" that they all have access to in addition to the already-established ones. I think it'd be a fun team-building exercise and enjoyable as a game! The winning criteria can be something like one winner for sticking closest to the team's pre-established theme, one for most creative, one judge's choice.... something like that!
(Crow would just try to run this himself except he'd want to PLAY in it, so like. CAN'T DO THAT.)
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The mods will discuss it and if we decide to use it we'll let you know!